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Talk:Vladimir Ostrogorsky
1. Does Russian have a word that can mean both "cat" and something rude? Would be a hell of a coincidence if it did. If not that scene's a complete waste of time. :I'm not a Russian speaker, but I know enough about the evolution of the word "pussy" to know that it's probably rooted in Old German or Old Scandinavian. It's possible, given cultural migration that did take place into Russia in its formative years that the Russian language did somehow pick up a word for cat that has a vulgar meaning, but it seems very unlikely. ::Hmm, that's one area of history I've never explored. Interesting. Turtle Fan (talk) 16:25, August 2, 2014 (UTC) :::We did have someone raise a similar issue with Theo Hossbach making a pun on laying and lying not sounding similar in German. Its in Point #5 here. I took it as artistic license on Turtledove's part and mentally say "substitute an appropriate pun in the actual language being used". A little more difficult here but not impossible. ML4E (talk) 16:51, August 2, 2014 (UTC) ::::That can be overlooked if it does nothing more than add a bit of flavor here and there. But HT leaned so heavily on this one that for me at least it fairly begged the question, and thus took me out of the story. ::::Oh, and the languages in The Gap books all align really, really closely with English in all sorts of ways. All the languages. ::::By the way, an extremely quick Internet search has informed me that Russian has one word to use for a male cat, a different word for a female cat, and no gender-neutral word for the animal. Just like how you can't talk about a single specimen of Bos taurus in English without committing to calling it either a bull or a cow. I would think that would make it even harder for an equivalent of "pussy" to gain its secondary meaning, but I still couldn't say with certainty. Turtle Fan (talk) 22:04, August 2, 2014 (UTC) :In Spanish, the only other language I'm reasonably familiar with, the word "panocha" is the most common vulgarity for vulva, and it's also a form of brown sugar. The words for cat don't have any negative connotation that I'm aware of (I'm not fluent, though, so take that for what it's worth.) And at this stage of the game, Spanish and English have interacted a lot more linguistically than English and Russian have. TR (talk) 20:06, August 1, 2014 (UTC) ::"Panocha," good to know. Some years ago I was told (though I'm not certain if it's true, the circumstances were such that it could just have been a joke at my expense) that "paloma," the word for "dove," is also a slang word for "penis," at least in Puerto Rico. Turtle Fan (talk) 16:25, August 2, 2014 (UTC) 2. I'm so sick of people using Schroedinger's Cat as some sort of overly elaborate shorthand for "We won't know how this plays out till after it's over." Schroedinger was mocking physicists who were content with understanding quantum mechanics purely in terms of statistical probabilities by positing a hypothetical scenario in which a quantum event would lead to one of two mutually exclusive, observable results, so that it would be known with absolute certainty how that specific event played out. He wasn't creating a paradox to illustrate that some things, such as whether the Salvation Committee will agree to Stalin's terms or whether Leonard and Penny can make a romantic relationship work, can't be predicted till they've happened. An appeal to unpredictability and uncertainty strengthens (though not by much at all) the ideas he was arguing against. Also, anyone who's not intelligent enough to grasp intuitively the concept of "There's no way to tell ahead of time whether X will happen" is definitely too stupid for a complex thought experiment to help clarify anything for them. Turtle Fan (talk) 19:28, August 1, 2014 (UTC) :That whole thing set my teeth on edge. In addition to the issues you listed, it's historicity and its purpose in the story make no real sense. Schrodinger came up with the idea in 1935. Mouradian is unwittingly committing plagiarism. Even if we assume that the USSR was ignoring everything coming out pre-Nazi-but-still-Fascist Austria, this is still an idea that's been out there for a while. Even if HT is doing that "It's AH, so different people come up with familiar ideas in different ways" schtick, it's still an idea that's been out there since before the POD. ::That too. I wasn't sure of the exact date of the cat, but I knew it predated the Munich Conference, at least. Turtle Fan (talk) 16:25, August 2, 2014 (UTC) :::It was a somewhat strained scene. As far as hearing about Schroedinger's Cat in the USSR, I would think that even if the Soviets weren't ignoring stuff coming out of Germanic lands, the notion would not be well known outside physicist circles. ML4E (talk) 16:51, August 2, 2014 (UTC) ::::No, probably not. Over the years I've read or seen a few bits and pieces of historical and historical fiction material that involves a layman in the 1920s or 30s picking up a bit of what was then cutting-edge quantum mechanics, and it appears that most people without scientific training found it disturbing and that it weakened their faith in all sorts of notions they'd had about how the world worked. Stalin would certainly not tolerate that sort of thing getting out. ::::And of course Mouradian says nothing about nuclear decay and vials of poison being in the box with the cat, so the implication is that he arrived at the very specific and unlikely endpoint as Schroedinger from a completely different direction. I really don't see that as an improvement. Turtle Fan (talk) 22:04, August 2, 2014 (UTC) :I suspect HT was trying to show us that Mouradian's a fairly sharp guy who might do remarkable things. It was a stupid way to do it, particularly as HT had actually done a pretty good job of that already, and because it completely misstates the point of Schrodinger's cat, as you say. TR (talk) 20:06, August 1, 2014 (UTC) ::Yeah, that was my read too. And since HT built an entire scene around it, it's impossible to overlook as I perhaps would have for a throwaway line. Turtle Fan (talk) 16:25, August 2, 2014 (UTC) :::When I read the scene, I thought it might warrant an article on Schroedinger's Cat with the sub-section being called Mouradian's Pussy. Given the distaste both of you have, I'm having second thoughts. ML4E (talk) 16:51, August 2, 2014 (UTC) ::::Well, I'd rather we didn't. For one thing, as you pointed out, it's got nothing to do with Schroedinger except that it ended with the same image, and obviously HT was ripping off Schroedinger (most likely by way of Bill Prady or someone else who's popularizing a bastardization of the thought experiment) himself. Turtle Fan (talk) 22:04, August 2, 2014 (UTC) Ender's Game Having recently seen the movie version, this scene reminds me of the way Ender dealt with a couple of school bullies, on two separate occasions, namely all out attacks to intimidate them into not picking on him again. In the book anyway, Ender unintentionally and unknowingly killed both his assailants. I wonder if Turtledove had that in mind? ML4E (talk) 22:57, November 10, 2014 (UTC) :That's a good movie. I saw it for the first time last summer. ::Yes, it was very good. I was nervous about an SF novel being translated into a movie but they did a good job. ML4E (talk) 22:00, November 11, 2014 (UTC) :::I felt much the same. It was the best screen adaptation of an SF novel in quite a long time. Turtle Fan (talk) 23:10, November 11, 2014 (UTC) :I don't know whether that's what HT was thinking, but if that's the connection you drew, you might want to add a section to the Literary Allusions page. Turtle Fan (talk) 03:04, November 11, 2014 (UTC) ::Its my uncertainty about HT's inspiration (if any) that makes me hesitate to add it to Literary Allusions. ML4E (talk) 22:00, November 11, 2014 (UTC) :::The bar's always been set pretty low for that page. Basically, if an intelligent reader is reminded of something by someone else, it's fair game. Turtle Fan (talk) 23:10, November 11, 2014 (UTC)